Chapter 1: Crime and Policy: A Complex Problem Flashcards
What are the three major factors influencing crime problem?
- Poverty
- Race/Ethnicity
- Geography
What are two possible causes for falling crime rate?
- Contextual factors
2. Policy influences
What type of crime policy is best for research standards?
Evidence-based
What factors indicate that crime drop is genuine?
- NCVS is a reliable measure of criminal victimization.
- Trends in NCVS have continued for 15 years.
- The FBI’s UCR has reported same significant declines in last 15-20 years.
What are some social indicators that affect crime?
- Teenage pregnancy
- Infant mortality
- Unemployment rate/economy
What is a contextual factor that contributes to crime drop?
A. Demographic Changes
B. Drug epidemics
C. Changes in labor markets
What are some influential policies that influence crime?
A. Gun control policies
B. Increases in incarceration
C. Incapacitation of offenders
D. Innovation in policing
Where did evidence-based research originate?
At the Cochrane Collaboration in England that examined health care policies
Why do we need evidence-based crime policy?
A. Traditional lack of evidence to support policy
B. Some policies are harmful
C. New standards of evidence-based crime
Name a program that was harmful to its participants rather than helpful?
Scared Straight
What are the standards of evidence-based crime policy?
A. Empirical evidence
B. Experimental or quasi-experimental research design
C. Replication
D. Ability to be reviewed in meta-analyses
What are the two most influential factors that determine whether or not you’ll be a crime victim?
Race and Income
What are America’s two crime problems?
One that effects white, middle-class Americans & another that affects people of color, the poor and young people of color
What are “bait and switch” policies?
Policies that are advertised as solutions to the most serious crimes but have their most serious impact on less serious crimes.
What is an example of a “bait and switch” policy in the justice system?
The way in which policies are aimed at targeting violent offenders but most often result in the imprisonment of nonviolent offenders (i.e. sex offenders)
Which ethnicity do Elliott Currie, Jerome Miller, the Sentencing Project and others feel that the war on drugs targets?
Young African-American men
What does virtually every state strip a convicted felon the right to doing?
Vote
What are the effects of sending many men from one community to prison?
A. Breaks up families
B. Weakens the critical social control function
C. Removes positive role models
D. Damanges the economic health
E. Undermines the legitimacy of our criminal justice system
What is collective efficacy?
The capacity of ordinary people to work together to solve neighborhood problems.
What does conservative crime control theology emphasize?
Personal responsibility (people are responsible for their own fate)
What does liberal crime control theology emphasize?
Social context of crime (crime is the result of social influences such as the family, peer group, neighborhood, economics, etc.)
